47: Chapter 47 Picking Up People!

The gale of the polar night whipped against the a70 fighter, creating piercing sonic booms.

Less than an hour later.

"Captain, radar has locked onto the target fleet. Distance: 10 kilometers. Entering hover standby mode."

EVA's cold, clear voice echoed within the cockpit.

Zhou An looked through the holographic screen, surveying the dark night below. It was a sizable joint fleet, with a massive, heavily armored LV3 heavy merchant ship at its center.

The hull's surface shimmered with the faint blue halo characteristic of fusion engines, looking quite luxurious and impressive.

Surrounding this flagship were two slightly smaller armed frigates arranged in a well-ordered formation. The outer perimeter was tightly tethered with iron chains and magnetic tow ropes, dragging a large number of dilapidated aircraft like a cluster of barnacles clinging to a giant whale, looking both crowded and miserable.

"Muzi."

Zhou An opened the private chat channel.

[Zhou An]: "Tell Zhang Ming we have arrived at the high altitude ten kilometers behind his fleet. Tell him to find an opportunity to take his wife and jump ship directly."

[Zhou An]: "Tell him that as long as his body leaves the ship's gravitational field, I can take him away."

Far away at the Cloud Top Fortress, Li Muzi immediately relayed the message to Zhang Ming.

Inside the Black Iron Guild's kitchen.

Upon seeing the system's private chat notification, Zhang Ming's pupils contracted sharply. Without any hesitation, he stood up immediately, hid a few of the sharpest boning knives from the kitchen at his waist, and grabbed a tattered windbreaker.

He crossed the grease-stained corridor and hurried into the noisy, chaotic factory area. Massive gears and tracks emitted a deafening roar, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of machine oil and rust. At the end of the conveyor belt, he found Lin Qing, who was struggling to move scrap metal.

Grabbing Lin Qing's frostbitten hands, Zhang Ming's eyes were firm: "Qingqing, they're here. Let's go."

The two had just snuck out of the factory and hadn't yet reached the connecting passage to the deck when a furious shout suddenly came from above.

"Zhang Ming! You son of a bitch cook, why aren't you staying at your stove instead of wandering around aimlessly?! And taking your wife with you, too."

The fat-faced personnel manager, still holding that electric whip, walked down the stairs with two thugs. He looked at the two with ill intent, his murky gaze wantonly roaming over Lin Qing's thin frame.

"Man... Manager..."

Zhang Ming's heart tightened; he quickly bowed his waist, shielding Lin Qing behind him, and put on a fawning smile.

"What, looking at this dark night, wanting to take your wife to some secluded place for some fun?"

The manager sneered, the whip slapping loudly in his hand.

"Let me tell you, don't be ungrateful. If it weren't for the fact that your cooking is barely passable, I would have already given your delicate-skinned wife to my underlings to play with! Do you think it would be your turn to be lovey-dovey here?"

Lin Qing was trembling all over from that lewd gaze, clutching Zhang Ming's sleeve tightly.

Zhang Ming secretly gritted his teeth, forcing himself to swallow his anger, and quickly explained: "It's not like that, Manager! It's just that the kitchen was too busy today, and an apprentice accidentally threw half a bag of unspoiled grain into the disposal chute as trash. That's food! I was just afraid of getting in trouble with the superiors, so I rushed to take Qingqing to the trash chute to retrieve it!"

"Half a bag of grain? Damn it, those wasteful bastards!" Upon hearing it was food, the manager's expression changed instantly. He pointed viciously at Zhang Ming's nose and cursed, "Then what the hell are you standing there for? Go find it! If you don't bring it back, you two can go stand on the deck and freeze tonight! Get lost!"

After speaking, the manager arrogantly swung his whip and walked away with his thugs.

Zhang Ming's back was already soaked. He pulled Lin Qing, his hands and feet cold, and followed the narrow, pungent-smelling passage toward the trash disposal chute at the stern of the ship.

This was the very edge of the entire fleet, with the pitch-black, bottomless abyss beneath it. The gale roared in, almost freezing people instantly.

Two guards were dozing off at the disposal chute. Hearing footsteps, they instantly woke up and aimed their guns at them.

"Who goes there?!"

"Brothers, brothers, don't shoot, have a smoke."

Zhang Ming skillfully pulled out half a pack of shriveled, low-quality cigarettes and handed them over, his face full of smiles.

"The manager sent us to the trash chute to find a bag of grain that was thrown out by mistake. We'll be done in a second, just a second."

The two guards saw in the dim light that it was Zhang Ming from the kitchen, and seeing the cigarettes in his hand, they greedily took them. After lighting them and taking a deep drag, they couldn't be bothered to pay attention to these two low-level laborers who were like ants in their eyes.

"Damn it, if you lost the food, you deserve to freeze. Hurry up! It's windy and freezing, get out of here when you're done!"

Zhang Ming bowed and scraped his thanks, pulling Lin Qing to the edge of the wide metal trash chute.

The gale scraped against their faces like knives. Lin Qing looked at the abyss-like darkness below, her legs unable to stop trembling violently.

"A-Ming... I'm scared..."

"Hey! What are you dawdling for? If you can't find it, get lost, don't be an eyesore here!"

The guard behind was getting impatient from the cold wind and urged them loudly.

Zhang Ming hugged his wife tightly: "Don't be afraid! Close your eyes! We'd rather fall to our deaths than be treated like pigs and dogs here!"

In those brief few seconds, Zhang Ming took a deep breath.

Without any hesitation, he decisively took Lin Qing's hand, faced the bone-chilling wind, and leaped!

"Fuck! Someone jumped ship?!"

The two smoking guards heard the noise, rushed over to look down, but only saw two shadows completely disappear into the violent night storm.

The polar night's gale whistled. The two lay on the edge looking down, but they couldn't see a trace of anyone.

"Damn, are these two crazy? They'd rather fall to their deaths than work?"

One of the guards frantically took the walkie-talkie from his waist and pressed the call button: "Ma... Manager! Something happened! Zhang Ming from the kitchen and his wife jumped from the trash chute!"

Just as the two jumped out of the trash chute, a red falling object alarm immediately popped up on the A70 radar screen hovering below.

"Target detected leaving enemy gravitational field. Calculating descent trajectory and wind drift... Interception program initiated."

"Let's go!"

Zhou An decisively unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up from the pilot's seat.

In the back of the cabin, Luo Ning also skillfully activated her mechanical combat armor.

That light armor, upgraded from a jetpack, was even more powerful than Zhou An's armor. Her big eyes were full of excitement: "Boss, this is my first time doing such an exciting job as catching people from mid-air!"

"Cabin door opening. Prepare to exit!"

"Boom—!"

As the A70's side cabin door blasted open, a violent, freezing airflow instantly poured in.

Zhou An and Luo Ning didn't hesitate at all; they faced the storm, leaped, and jumped into the vast polar night!

At this moment, Zhang Ming and Lin Qing were free-falling at a terrifying speed. The intense feeling of weightlessness and the knife-like gale made it impossible for them to even scream; they could only hold each other tightly, waiting for the end of being smashed to pieces.

Just in the moment Zhang Ming thought they were surely going to die.

"Bang!"

A dull blast of air pressure exploded in his ears. Immediately after, a metal hand as powerful as an iron clamp grabbed his collar tightly, forcibly curbing his terrifying downward momentum!

On the other side, a purple tail flame nimbly traced an arc in the air. Luo Ning used her thrusters to precisely circle to the other side and grabbed Lin Qing's arm.

"Cough, cough... cough!"

Zhang Ming coughed up a bit of blood as his collar choked him. He struggled to open his eyes, which were streaming with tears from the wind, and looked in horror at the man in dark red heavy armor hovering in mid-air.

He didn't know Zhou An, but there was only one possibility for someone appearing in this desperate situation.

"You... are you the boss who contacted me earlier?!"

Zhang Ming shouted in disbelief.

"That's right, now I'm going to take you away."

Zhou An's voice came through the armor's external speaker, cold and steady, yet it gave Zhang Ming a great sense of security.

The micro-thrusters on Zhou An's back violently spewed tongues of fire, bringing Zhang Ming down steadily onto the cabin door of the a70 fighter, which was already hovering to receive them. Luo Ning also landed in the cabin right after, carrying Lin Qing.

"EVA, close the cabin!"

As the cabin door closed, the violent cold wind was completely cut off, and the cabin returned to warmth. Zhang Ming and Lin Qing collapsed on the alloy floor, gasping for air, as if they had just walked through the gates of hell.

"Find a seat and sit down!"

Zhou An didn't waste words and walked straight to the pilot's seat. Although the A70 was an advanced carrier-based aircraft, space was limited. To pursue extreme speed, there were only three aerodynamic anti-G seats in total.

Zhang Ming and Lin Qing, feeling reserved and like survivors of a disaster, huddled in the two rear seats and fastened their seatbelts tightly.

Zhou An sat in the main pilot's seat. Just as he was about to pull the throttle, he found that Luo Ning had thrown away her jetpack, walked over very naturally, squeezed directly into the main pilot's seat, and sat right on Zhou An's lap.

Luo Ning's figure was petite, and huddled in the arms of the Tier 3 Titan-bodied Zhou An, she just filled the gap in the seat, and it didn't even seem crowded.

"What are you looking at? There are only three seats total; you can't expect this beautiful girl to sit on the floor, right?"

Luo Ning adjusted her posture righteously, muttering, "Boss, your armor is killing me. I'm warning you, focus on flying the plane, don't make any unnecessary moves."

Zhou An rolled his eyes speechlessly. Right now, his mind was full of how to evacuate efficiently, with absolutely no unnecessary romantic thoughts. He was just like a heartless driving machine, his hands steadily reaching over Luo Ning's shoulders to grab the control stick.

Just then, the radar screen erupted with blinding red light!

"Alarm! Detected that the Black Iron Guild fleet above has discovered our tracks!"

"Enemy fire control radar has locked on!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

On the Black Iron Guild's flagship, several anti-aircraft guns began to frantically spew tongues of fire into the polar night, with dense shells exploding around the A70. At the same time, five crude LV1 escort wingmen launched from their deck, diving and pursuing like a pack of mad dogs!

Then, the loud horn on the flagship transmitted the furious roar of that personnel manager, echoing in the vast night:

"Zhang Ming! You ungrateful traitor! How dare you conspire with outsiders?! Today I will make you into a sieve, and hang your corpses on the bow to dry! Listen up, you piece of junk plane in front, stop immediately and hand over the fugitives, otherwise the Black Iron Guild fleet will blast you into slag!"

"Boss, they're chasing us!" Zhang Ming shouted nervously from the back, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

"Chasing?"

Zhou An looked at the red dots on the rear radar that were crawling like turtles, and sneered with disdain.

"With this bunch of scrap metal that can't even reach a speed of three hundred, they dare to use the word 'chase' in front of a fighter jet?"

Zhou An's right hand slammed the throttle to the end!

"Boom—!!!"

The plasma thrusters at the rear of the A70 violently spewed azure tongues of fire several meters long! A terrifying thrust instantly pinned everyone in the cabin tightly against their seatbacks! This pitch-black ghost fighter broke the sound barrier, turned into a stream of light, and easily left those heavy, clumsy shells behind!

"Before we go, let's send these stingy slave owners a little parting gift."

Zhou An coldly pressed the weapon launch button.

"[Electromagnetic Bombing Matrix], eject backwards!"

Dozens of high-energy, faint blue plasma spheres were densely ejected from the rear of the A70, as if scattering a deadly, glowing net in the polar night.

The five LV1 wingmen behind, who were diving desperately to pursue, couldn't even make a dodging maneuver; they crashed head-on into the plasma matrix!

"Rumble—!"

A brilliant chain of explosions erupted at an altitude of ten thousand meters. Those five wingmen, as if made of paper, were instantly melted by the terrifying high temperature, turning into five fleeting fireworks in the polar night.