Counterfeit Hero

Televisions were being turned on one after another, as people of Chuckna stopped in front of the screens.

In the office lounge, an employee who had just made himself a cup of coffee casually glanced at the TV and couldn’t move away, as more and more employees gathered around the TV. Before long, the entire office area was sparsely populated, with everyone squeezing into the lounge and the corridors of the building with the TV.

In bars, cafes, and various entertainment venues, the clamor subsided into silence. With repeated shushing, people playing and chatting were puzzled, turning their gaze toward the TV screens. Then, their eyes refused to leave.

During the nights and days, the dawn and dusk on the immigrant planets, people gathered under the giant public TVs in squares and the massive advertisement screens on commercial street buildings, looking up to watch. The crowd grew larger, slowing down the entire city’s rhythm of life.

On the streets, more and more flying cars activated their autopilot and in-vehicle TVs, joining the neatly lined auto-piloted flying car queue along the roadside. Virtual images on each car’s windshield displayed the same scene. Passengers inside watched the TV intently, letting the flying cars proceed along the automatic lane.

Congress had temporarily adjourned, and the previously heatedly debating members now watched the large TV screen in the spacious and bright lounge hall with solemn expressions. The military base’s training grounds were empty, the shouting during training, the sounds of footsteps had long vanished. Thousands of officers and soldiers gathered in front of the TV in the barracks...

Through the cameraman’s lens, at this moment, the entire attention of Chuckna was drawn to the Hanjing Army General Hospital.

With a clap from Old Marshal Li Cunxin, someone everyone was very familiar with appeared in the swiftly switching TV images.

Felix, the gray-haired old man, sat once again in his talk show room just like before. He wore a suit, with the usual tieless, unbuttoned striped shirt underneath. He seemed a bit thinner than before, yet appeared more spirited, exuding a resilience that comes from returning from war.

It looked as if he had been waiting for a long time. People rarely saw, at this moment, a subtle excitement in the always composed and calm Felix.

"I’m glad to meet everyone at such an unplanned moment," Felix looked into the camera and straightforwardly said with his magnetic voice, "Now, I’d like to take you, through our lens, to get to know a troop, to get to know a person."

The scene transitioned into a vast starry sky in front of everyone’s eyes. Watching the image, densely scattered wreckages of warships and aircraft drifting in the endless void, witnessing the appalling scars on the tumbling rocks in the asteroid belt, the audience before the TV couldn’t help but exclaim in awe.

"This is the Saleria Longbow Star System, a place we are very familiar with," Felix’s voice, calm and gentle, sounded from outside the screen: "This star system, together with our Resk Star System, forms the Southeastern Star Domain’s most important giant channel, the Southeast Main Channel. One could say, since the space exploration era, humanity discovered the entire Southeast Star Domain through this channel."

The camera roamed through the void, with broken ship wreckage silently floating in the asteroid belt. Jagged breaks, bent secondary gun barrels, various living items and parts floating out from within the ships... It all appeared as a ghost-haunted graveyard.

"Everything we see before us comes from a battle not long ago. In this battle, two Elephant-class fleets of the Binart Empire, led by their Commander Hanfrey, attempted to capture the Longbow Star System to open the gate for a direct advance onto our Resk Star System. As everyone knows, the name Hanfrey Fleet was erased from the Binart Fleet’s roster after this battle. They did not open the door to Resk but became prisoners of our Allies instead."

The scene returned to Felix.

"Anyone with a bit of common sense would know how significant this battle was for us in Chuckna. If the main channel of the Southeast Star Domain were occupied by the Western Alliance, we would not only be facing the armies of Suss and Jiepeng, but also the forces of the Binart, Naga Federation, and Desic Empire. They would swarm along the main channel, devastating our cities, slaughtering our citizens, and leaving dreadful scars on this nation!"

Felix’s description of the terrifying scenario sent chills down the viewers’ spines. Before the televisions, all sounds vanished into a dead silence.

"Chuckna is a nation that knows how to reciprocate. We must thank the courageous fighting of the Feiyang Republic 19th Group Fleet, thank their Commander Vice Admiral Douglas, thank every Feiyang soldier who bravely fought in this battle. However, few people know, besides the Feiyang 19th Group Fleet, there was another fleet, fighting bloodily in this airspace! It was their presence that ultimately led the Hanfrey Fleet to sink here!"

On the screen, Felix’s figure gradually faded, a warplane turned from blurred to clear.