Chapter 4: The Battle for Freedom

"If you can fix the 'Mammoth', I guarantee no one in Zone H will dare to touch you. But if you're playing me..."

"Then I'll probably die a horrible death, right?"

"No, it would be more painful than death..."

In the yard, by the storage room door.

The yard time had passed, and the prisoners had returned to their cells. On the vast yard, there was only one mech and three people: Eddie, Adam, and Little Curly Hair.

Eddie was inspecting the 'Mammoth' mech, while Adam and Little Curly Hair watched.

"One piece of good news and one bad news..."

After a while, Eddie jumped down from the mech and wiped the oil off his face in front of Adam: "The good news is that I indeed have the skills to fix the Mammoth. The bad news is that under the current conditions, I can't fully repair it. Many precision parts can't be made in this makeshift workshop. At best, I can only restore its basic operations, but it won't be fit for intense combat."

"We can't fight anymore..." Adam muttered, glancing at Little Curly Hair with a questioning look.

Although Adam was strong, he knew nothing about mechanics. He needed to confirm with Eddie, a professional, if his words were credible. Little Curly Hair was the only professional he had.

His real name was Dick, nicknamed Little Curly Hair because of his naturally curly brown hair.

Sensing Adam's gaze, Little Curly Hair nodded.

As a professional, even though Eddie hadn't started working yet, his inspection process and technique indicated that he was indeed a skilled mechanic, and even more professional than him.

"Alright, what do you need?" After getting the response, Adam turned back to Eddie, patting him on the shoulder: "As long as you can fix the Mammoth, I can give you anything you want in Zone H. A private cell, good food, even beautiful women, anything you desire."

"No need for women, just get me some spare parts for soldier-class mechs, especially the main control chips."

"That's not possible."

Eddie: "..."

Are you joking?

The toughest inmate in Zone H, more authoritative than the warden in some ways, a man who could get women into a male prison area, clearly had powerful connections outside the prison.

You even managed to get a mech in here, and now you're telling me you can't get its parts?

"You don't know the purpose of the 'Mammoth'?"

However, facing Eddie's confusion, Adam threw back a question, eyeing Eddie suspiciously.

"What else could a mech be used for..." Eddie raised his eyebrows slightly.

It's like a car, what else can it do?

Most importantly, what does that have to do with whether you can get a chip?

Eddie looked puzzled at Adam's bald head.

"It seems you really don't know." Adam showed a novel expression upon hearing Eddie's answer, as if encountering something fresh, which puzzled Eddie.

"Boss, let me explain it to him."

Little Curly Hair stepped forward, looked at Adam, and after getting a nod, turned to Eddie: "It's simple yet complicated. To explain it clearly, we need to go back more than sixty years..."

Little Curly Hair invited Eddie to sit down and began his story. With his narrative, Eddie understood why there was a field mech in this prison.

According to Little Curly Hair, over sixty years ago, the Ninth Prison, occupying almost half a planet, was a strict penitentiary. It had robust security systems, a strong armed force, and was dedicated to imprisoning the most dangerous criminals caught in the Aether Prime galaxy. No one had ever successfully escaped from it, a record that made it a model in the Aether Prime prison system.

The problem arose with this so-called model. About sixty years ago, Aether Prime captured a special criminal, a notorious interstellar criminal who committed major crimes within the Aether Prime galaxy, causing widespread public outrage. Normally, such a criminal would have been executed without trial. However, the complication was that this criminal was a noble of a high-ranking federation, significantly more powerful than Aether Prime.

To compare with our world, it was like a post-WWII defeated nation capturing a rogue general from a victorious nation.

Releasing him was unacceptable to the public and would be a loss of face. Executing him was unthinkable.

Caught in this dilemma, the Aether Prime officials decided to imprison the criminal and leave the problem to future generations.

Where to imprison him?

"The Ninth Prison..." Eddie responded instinctively.

As the 'model prison' within the Aether Prime galaxy, the Ninth Prison was the officials' first choice.

"Smart!" Little Curly Hair gave Eddie a thumbs-up and continued the story.

After the first 'super criminal', it was like opening the floodgates. Periodically, Aether Prime would capture criminals like the 'federal noble' whom they dared not process. Perhaps due to inertia or political expediency, they didn't consider secretly releasing these people. Instead, they publicly announced their capture for public support and crammed them into the Ninth Prison.

This caused turmoil in the prison. Previously stable, the prison structure was disrupted by these 'super criminals', with each section harboring a few untouchable tyrants. Adam was one of them.

But the changes inside the prison were nothing compared to the outside world. As Aether Prime imprisoned more super criminals over the years, its politicians realized that while gaining public support, they also offended increasingly powerful forces.

These forces united and pressured Aether Prime's politicians, demanding the release of their organization's core members.

Initially, pressure from one or two powers was manageable. But now, with so many big players involved, Aether Prime's politicians couldn't handle it.

So, they shifted this pressure to Jesse Moss, the warden of the Ninth Prison. They asked her to devise a solution and even speak directly with these organizations' leaders. Rumor had it that Jesse was almost scared to death at the time.

"You make her sound so pitiful..."

Eddie sneakily glanced at the distant alloy tower.

The bay window was still there, but Jesse was no longer visible.

He could imagine the immense pressure Jesse faced, a challenge even the planet's rulers avoided. For a woman in her fifties to bear it was almost miraculous.

"What happened next?"

"Then, Jesse Moss actually came up with a plan..." Little Curly Hair walked over to the Mammoth, tapping its exterior armor and smiling in admiration: "This is the plan. Jesse decided to hold a competition on the Death Star. Can you imagine? She's a genius..."

Little Curly Hair became visibly more excited, continuing enthusiastically.

Although Jesse was an ordinary person, already fifty-five, she was undoubtedly capable and thoughtful.

As Little Curly Hair explained, Jesse organized a competition.

The core of the competition was mech combat.

She found many soldier-class field mechs on this junk planet, got them repaired, and made sure they were battle-ready.

Then she numbered these mechs, gathered all the tyrants together, and decided through a draw which mech would belong to whom.

In the end, these mechs participated in a capture-the-flag battle in a specially constructed arena.

There were no rules in the battle. All kinds of combat modes and methods were allowed, even killing, as long as one secured the flag by the end of the match.

A mech that won seven capture-the-flag battles or eliminated all other competing mechs could earn its tyrant freedom.

The only rule was that the mechs couldn't be equipped with parts sent by the powers behind the super criminals.

This accelerated the pace of the battles, quickly eliminating some mechs and preventing external forces from unbalancing the competition with high-spec parts.

"So, Adam is the so-called 'super criminal', the Mammoth is his mech, and you..." Eddie looked at Little Curly Hair: "Are you the pilot, the Iron Rider?"

"Yes."

Little Curly Hair shrugged, confirming, then continued: "I specially stole a high official's spacecraft, but it wasn't enough for a heavy sentence. Our leader had to bribe with several million planet coins to get the Aether Prime government to sentence me to the Ninth Prison."

"..."