Chapter 56

The first robbery yielded a harvest... no, a seizure of several small and medium-sized warships.

The fuel and supplies on the pirate ships were well preserved, so the mission was considered a complete success. However, after a brief moment of jubilation, the General Staff Office had been in a miserable state of working overtime.

Fu Luo had once thought that being a soldier was about defense or fighting, living every day with the sounds of training drills, and then facing the enemy in the dark and cold of space, drawing swords and slashing through thorns.

She positioned herself to become an absolute vanguard like Ye Wenlin, and now she might have to add "cunning like Yesi" and "determined like Colonel Yang".

Now, she realized her imagination had run away with her, and she had mistakenly envisioned military life as being very passionate. Reality is always a decadent and sleazy old man.

Here, in addition to fighting, there turned out to be endless reports and endless meetings.

How to deploy the fleet? Where can it be hidden? Should it move frequently? What are the routes and principles of movement?

How to take turns on missions, who is responsible for the missions? What strategic guidelines to use, what organizational discipline to take?

They also had to assist with military logistics: taking inventory of remaining supplies, arranging how to use them, determining how to obtain other needed supplies, and deciding how to allocate them once obtained.

...The list goes on.

Running a fleet that can only survive by robbing, with only inflows and no outflows, is much more difficult than running a company. Just the top-level design of the command transmission mechanism alone had Fu Luo scratching her head and revising three drafts. When she finally brought it to the General Staff's meeting, she was interrogated by her usually very friendly superiors and colleagues, as if in a three-court trial, asking her questions one by one.

After being brutally interrogated like this a few times, it's no wonder that the people in the General Staff Office have strong psychological qualities.

Every time Fu Luo solemnly wrote reports and attended meetings, she felt like a very normal civil servant doing very serious clerical work. Then, before she could even turn off her computer, she would be assigned a "siege" mission, instantly transforming from a "normal civil servant" to a "pirate who specializes in robbing space pirates".

Just like that, in the drifting Second Department, she lived a "watch me transform seventy-two times" kind of life... for several months.

During this period, Fu Luo participated in countless military operations.

In Yesi's words, the confrontation between giant ships and missiles is a very tasteless thing, only small ships' close combat possesses a true aesthetic of violence.

Oh... by the way, that bastard Yesi is now their special consultant.

Fu Luo had just returned from outside and was on her way back to her quarters, walking swiftly in the corridor of the flagship. She was still wearing the same uniform, but the murderous aura on her body was so strong that it was choking.

During this time, Yesi had shown her a myriad of small ship combat tactics, which were truly unscrupulous in cheating and deceiving.

While Yesi cheated the opponent, he also cheated his teammates - for example, he often threw Fu Luo directly into the enemy's encirclement and sat by and watched.

Pirates regard human life as worthless, and the survival of the fittest is the only standard of survival.

"If you are a little princess who needs to be rescued, and your superiors entrusted me to save you, of course I can always take care of you - but didn't you claim to be a soldier?"

Yesi: "Die in there, or kill your way out with a bloody path."

Fu Luo found that to learn something from the old man, not only did she have to be able to sing the Chuntian Huahua Chorus repertoire, but she also had to be lucky enough.

Gradually, through these life-and-death situations, Fu Luo acquired the imperceptible smell of gunpowder—the scent of a true warrior that could never be forged in a simulation cabin.

At this moment, Fu Luo was single-mindedly thinking about the communication equipment while pondering the issue of military ship allocation rights - like the Changjiang and Lancang, each giant ship had hundreds of escort ships. Strictly speaking, the resources in the hands of these captains were even richer than Yang Ning's. Over time, if there was no reasonable power ratio, problems would arise.

Fu Luo's great strength was that the greater the pressure, the faster she grew. Yang Ning probably saw this point clearly, and was not afraid of tiring her to death at all. No matter how much Yesi tortured Fu Luo, this hands-off superior always watched from the sidelines and never interfered. After everything was done, he would also throw her a large amount of paperwork.

Except for brief sleep time, Fu Luo's brain was stuffed full at all times.

Fu Luo swiped open the security door, and there was another ordinary door inside.

She was thinking too deeply, almost forgetting where this place was. Subconsciously, she raised her foot to kick, but before her foot was halfway up, she remembered that this was not a captured enemy ship. She could only rub her nose and retract her outstretched leg, reflecting on herself: "I'm really getting more and more of a bandit temperament."

At this moment, the door was pulled open from the inside, and Fu Luo met the surprised face of Quartermaster Dong Jialing.

Fu Luo: "..."

She was stunned for a moment, then bent down with a calm face and dusted off her pant leg - as if that was her intention all along.

Dong Jialing tilted her head and looked at her for a moment, frowning: "Still on duty?"

Fu Luo gave an embarrassed smile: "No, just got back."

Dong Jialing glanced at her, only to feel that Fu Luo was becoming more and more unkempt, probably from spending too much time with Yesi. Even her hair had become a postmodern mess, with bangs so long they covered half her face, making the already murderous-looking woman appear even more gloomy.

It's an eyesore...

"Come with me." Quartermaster Jialing grabbed her wrist and dragged Fu Luo away.

"Sit down, sit there." Dong Jialing pressed her into a chair, then took out a white cloth, shook it out, and draped it over Fu Luo, complaining, "Look at you, what a mess!"

The quartermaster was going to take on the role of a barber. Fu Luo was embarrassed and hurriedly declined: "Hey, Sister Jialing, no no no, I'll go back and cut it myself."

Back at the space fortress, there was a dedicated logistics department to take care of these things, but now that the young masters had fallen to this state, of course they had to fend for themselves.

Fu Luo's hair grew very quickly. If she were on Earth, she would have to go for a haircut once a month. Having a lot of hair was one thing, but her hair was also very soft. If it grew a little longer, it became very difficult to deal with.

Especially when she was too busy, she would fall asleep right after washing her hair, or sometimes be called away for a mission before her hair was fully dry. In these situations, her helmet and pillow would become malicious objects, often leaving her with some very unruly hairstyles.

The quartermaster's room had many personal items. The walls had subtle patterns, a lampshade softened the light from the lamp, and there was even a terrarium on the desk. Of course, Dong Jialing would not violate regulations by placing very luxurious things, but just these ordinary items made her living space seem more distinctive than other places.

Even the mirror hanging behind the door seemed more elegant than other mirrors.

Fu Luo caught a glimpse of her own miserable appearance in it and felt a moment of shame. Then she thought to herself in amusement, "Oh well, beauty and ugliness are fated, wealth and rank are up to heaven."

Dong Jialing held Fu Luo's face between her hands, lifted it up to examine for a moment, and suddenly asked casually, "Did you have long hair when you were little?"

Fu Luo thought hard for a moment and nodded uncertainly, "Before elementary school, I think."

Dong Jialing: "Then why did you cut it?"

Fu Luo: "My mom was busy with work and didn't have time to comb it for me."

Dong Jialing: "Was it to avoid trouble?"

Was it to avoid trouble?

Fu Luo thought about it in her heart. Actually, it was mostly to avoid troubling Fu Xiaoxin - combing hair was too much trouble, dressing up was also too much trouble, being pretty like other girls... was also too much trouble.

As they spoke, Dong Jialing pulled out a very complicated set of equipment from under the bed.

Anyone who has been to a hair salon knows this thing. It's the highest-end hairdresser's toolkit that can do washing, cutting, blow-drying, perming, dyeing, and everything. It all fits in a one-foot square box that you can just pick up and go. It's the favorite of styling expert Teacher Robin.

Fu Luo prepared for strategic retreat while tremblingly asking, "Sister Jialing, what are you going to do?"

"Sit still," Dong Jialing said without looking up, "or I'll get angry."

The quartermaster was basically the overall logistics director for nearly the entire fleet. Her position itself tended to make people feel dependent on her, not to mention that Dong Jialing had always been the goddess of the entire Second Department. Her status in the Second Department was even more unassailable than the commanding officer's.

Basically, as long as the quartermaster frowned lightly and said "I'm going to get angry," the rough men on the warship would tuck their tails between their legs and stick to the walls like well-trained loyal dogs.

Fu Luo struggled for a moment. The murderous aura she had when she first entered the room, that readiness to kill in all directions, vanished into thin air. She shrank in the chair like a quail and said weakly, "That seems to be against regulations, and..."

"Yang Ning won't care." The quartermaster shut her up with one sentence.

Seeing that her protest was ineffective, Fu Luo could only take out her reader in silence and begin to carefully review the latest draft of the warship allocation process regulations.

As for her head... out of sight, out of mind. Let her play with it.

But later, Fu Luo couldn't finish reading. She fell asleep amidst a fragrant scent.

In a daze, the fragrance seemed sweet, like the smell inside a handmade baked goods store. It was warm all around, as if in the afternoon sunlight.

It would be even better if she could have a cup of hot tea after waking up, Fu Luo thought groggily.

She was awakened by a sudden voice in her in-ear communicator. Fu Luo didn't hear clearly what the other person said, but she suddenly startled awake. Two seconds later, she came to her senses and couldn't help sighing slightly - it turned out there was no cake, no sunlight, and no hot tea. She was still floating in the vast and empty universe.

Fu Luo rubbed her face and said with a slight nasal tone, "How did I fall asleep... what happened, why so loud?"

Dong Jialing had already put everything away and draped a blanket over her. She was sitting to the side holding a book, slowly flipping through it. Hearing this, she said without looking up, "It's nothing. Remember that remote communication station you brought back last time? The technicians successfully used the equipment inside to get the communication station operational."

Hearing that it wasn't an attack, Fu Luo first breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh..."

Then, she reacted half a beat later to what this meant and suddenly jumped three feet high, "What!"

The communication station was successfully constructed, and communications were starting to be restored!

From now on, they could search for comrades in the vast universe and even... even contact relatives on the ground!

Torn between laughter and tears, Dong Jialing said, "The communication station must be crowded with people now. Don't go join in the commotion. The report will be submitted to the General Staff Office soon. What's the rush?"

Fu Luo thought about it and figured that made sense. She calmed down a bit, but her mood couldn't help but soar.

As long as one could see a little improvement every day, even the most difficult days felt manageable.

As long as there was a little bit of hope, it was enough to support them to keep moving forward.

The news about the communicator alone was enough to make Fu Luo feel a sense of relief.

She lowered her head and grinned foolishly.

As she lowered her head, Fu Luo finally caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her silly grin froze on the corner of her mouth for a moment, and her whole being was in disarray.