From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 457 Franklin's Request for Help

When the Atlas Group completely withdrew from the Rubion system and did not even retain an office in public, various forces in the Rubion system began to make small moves one after another.

Before the Atlas Group withdrew, the Galaxy Autonomous Government, with the assistance of the Atlas combat forces, had always maintained "semi-military" control over the entire galaxy.

In addition, Atlas implemented the same strict management system for the companies it controlled as the headquarters, so the local forces in the Rubion galaxy were unable to conduct any effective infiltration into these companies.

Faced with these two "iron plates" that will not disappear in the short term, various civil groups, opposition parties in the Rubion galaxy, and forces supported by the federal government, the military-industrial complex and even the Star Dragon Empire can only choose to recuperate temporarily and dare not act rashly.

This situation continued until the relationship between Atlas and the Federation gradually deteriorated, and eventually they withdrew from the Rubion system as a whole.

The wave of public opinion that affected the entire Rubion galaxy and the riots that followed were fueled by multiple forces. Each party hoped to gain enough benefits from this conflict in order to have more bargaining chips in their hands when the situation stabilizes in the future.

As for the civilians who were induced by them to escalate the conflict step by step, in their eyes they were nothing more than consumables that could be used to achieve their goals.

Franklin, who was devoted to the affairs of the galaxy, naturally noticed this quickly, but he found that he could do nothing with his current status. He could only watch as the galaxy autonomous government continued to issue orders for the military and police in various regions to carry out "armed stability maintenance."

The Rubion Galaxy Autonomous Government is actually very clear about the true situation of the galaxy, so the newly established police force - especially the police force on Rubion V, are essentially paramilitary units.

Faced with unarmed "mobs" in various places, with only some civilian exoskeletons or engineering robots at most, the police force, which was trained with the assistance of the Atlas Group and specially designed to deal with special situations like this, gradually stabilized the situation.

After all, although light armored vehicles and multi-legged tanks are at the bottom of the "armored food chain", they are still extremely difficult to contend with for the "mobs" that start riots.

Just when most people except Franklin thought that the situation would at least slowly stabilize and not get worse, an "accident" happened.

A police force on Rubion V, when once again dispatched to perform the "armed stability maintenance" mission, directly surrendered to the "mob" side and raised the slogan of "resisting the tyranny of the galaxy autonomous government."

When the news spread, most of the senior officials and employees of the autonomous government felt as if the sky was falling, because they never expected that the violent unit affiliated with the autonomous government would "defect" in this way.

But Franklin knew from the beginning that this would happen when the galactic government sent in police forces and lifted the restrictions on their firing, allowing them to "arm and suppress riots."

Because these rebuilt police forces are all locals, most of their families work in related companies, and in a sense, their families are also victims.

Sending them out in this situation and letting them point their guns at people who may be their relatives, friends, or neighbors will ultimately result in these armed police officers caught in a dilemma choosing to stand on the side of their families.

The subsequent development was just as Franklin had expected. The "defection" of this police force seemed to become a signal. In the following days, there were continuous cases of "defection" among the riot police teams deployed in various places.

Although these teams surrendered to different mob teams, and the actual controllers behind these teams were different, and it could even be said that they were not necessarily in the same camp, this made no difference to the Rubion Galaxy government.

Because no matter what camp they belong to or what their ultimate goal is, the current goal of these "mobs" is very consistent - that is to destroy the current order and ultimately make the Rubion Galaxy Autonomous Government completely lose control of the galaxy.

With the continuous "defection" of the armed police force, these "mobs" in the Rubion galaxy have officially transformed into more advanced "armed mobs". Their morale has been greatly improved, and they have also received support from weapons and equipment.

Although the galaxy's autonomous government has not yet issued an official statement, when Franklin was attending an internal meeting, his superiors had already used the term "armed rebellion" to describe the current chaos in the galaxy.

On the other hand, the violent organizations controlled by the galaxy's autonomous government are still suffering losses in the day-to-day "armed suppression" operations, and the morale of the police officers is also declining.

After all, they are on duty in dangerous areas every day to maintain order and stability, and they have to constantly exchange fire with the increasingly powerful "armed mobs", and the death rate is also rising.

In this situation where they have clearly used their lives to maintain normal order, many people's families and friends will say behind their backs that they are accomplices of the galaxy autonomous government, cold-blooded and ruthless executioners, and have no sympathy for other civilians who are oppressed.
The senior officials of the Rubion Galaxy Police Center quickly reported the current situation of the entire police team and stated that if the situation continued, the remaining armed police forces would soon lose their ability to perform their normal duties.

So they suggested that the galaxy garrison officially take over the current situation to prevent it from further deteriorating.

This suggestion was quickly adopted after it was submitted along with the report.

Because according to some intelligence, some large local enterprises and consortiums in the Rubion galaxy have also stabbed the autonomous government, their former "ally", and their "small moves" have become more and more obvious.

If a strong blow is not taken soon, the autonomous government may really lose control of the galaxy.

Therefore, not long after the conflict between the federal government and the Atlas Group on Pyla IV ended, the rebuilt garrison forces in the Rubion system also began to formally carry out "counterinsurgency" operations.

Quelling rebellion - this is the term used by the galaxy autonomous government when reporting to the federal government, and while reporting the situation, the galaxy autonomous government also hopes to obtain support from the federal government.

However, the latter request was rejected at the speed of light, on the grounds that the federal government was currently focusing on the war on the front line and had no energy to deal with the problems of the Rubyon galaxy, so it hoped that the Rubyon galaxy autonomous government would withstand the pressure and solve the problem on its own.

When Franklin learned the news, he knew that at this stage, larger-scale civil unrest was inevitable.

And his judgment was verified once again. After the galaxy garrison began to carry out the counter-insurgency battle, the autonomous government's expectation of quickly suppressing the "armed mobs" in various places and restoring order did not occur.

Instead, it caused a more violent backlash and rapidly escalated the level of conflict in this civil unrest.

At the same time, what happened to the armed police force also happened to the rebuilt galaxy garrison.

At that time, when the garrison was being rebuilt, since the Federation had already relaxed restrictions on the autonomous governments of various star systems, the soldiers of this new force did not come from other star systems in the Federation, but were directly recruited from local "fellow villagers".

Because of this, the autonomous government of the Rubion Galaxy "justifiably" cancelled the "hometown allowance" in the wages of the garrison soldiers, and this fee accounted for nearly 3% of the basic salary of the grassroots soldiers.
In the eyes of the galaxy autonomous government, since everyone is now serving locally, this "hometown subsidy" obviously does not exist. To some extent, this decision does not seem to be a problem.

But the bad thing is that most grassroots soldiers don’t actually understand the reason. They only know that compared with the previous salary level of the garrison troops, their salary has dropped by nearly 3%.

Even those soldiers who could understand the reason were still unhappy. After all, the garrison was not located in a densely populated area, so even if they stayed in the garrison, they were still far away from their hometown.

You see, isn’t the resentment of the grassroots soldiers coming out now?

History has told people time and again not to withhold soldiers’ pay, otherwise there will definitely be big problems.

But as the old saying goes, the only lesson humanity can learn from history is that humanity never learns from history.
Among the rebuilt garrison forces of the Rubion galaxy, a large number of grassroots soldiers were already dissatisfied with the sharp drop in wages during their service.

In addition, the families of some soldiers were also victims of the collective salary cuts by the companies. They learned about this in the "family visits" with their families before the riots occurred. Therefore, most of the soldiers knew why the conflict occurred and subconsciously stood on the side of the oppressed civilians.

When he arrived at the combat zone and saw the civilians suffering once again because of the conflict, and the cities that had just been rebuilt and were now ravaged by war, the dissatisfaction that had been pent up in his heart for a long time burst out completely.

At the same time, a tacit "consensus" has emerged among the grassroots soldiers.

"I joined the garrison to protect my hometown from the invasion of the imperial devils, not to point the gun at my fellow countrymen!"

Not long after the armed counterinsurgency operation codenamed "Cast Lead" was launched, the garrison troops in various war zones began to "defection on the battlefield", especially those troops that did not properly handle the separation of their hometowns, resulting in "fellow villagers gathering together", and even transformed themselves into "rebels" in battalions and companies.
The frequent reports of success on the rebellion suppression front caused the already overwhelmed Rubion Galaxy Autonomous Government to make even more stupid decisions in its subsequent decisions.

One of the orders, which allowed each company to organize its own security forces to stabilize the situation in its area, made Franklin's eyes go dark.

Seeing the situation in the Rubion galaxy gradually develop from riots to the brink of civil war, Franklin, who did not want his hometown to be ravaged by war again but had no other choice, only had one last choice.

Try to request intervention from 'external forces' - that is, the Atlas Group.

After reading some related news during this period, he already knew that this giant company that was driven out of the Rubion galaxy was much stronger in comprehensive strength than before.

But when he really made up his mind to ask Amber for help, he found that he didn't seem to have the contact information of the boss behind Atlas. Although he had a good chat with him at the party, it didn't mean that he was qualified to get his contact information.

The last Atlas office in the Rubion galaxy had already been closed, so it would be impossible to contact the relevant personnel for the time being.

Just as Franklin was thinking about what he should do, he saw the Atlas official website on the virtual screen of his desk and an inconspicuous "Contact Us" below.

For some unknown reason, Franklin reached out and clicked on the icon. Immediately afterwards, the personal terminal connected to the built-in terminal on the desk initiated a communication request to a network communication address built into the "Contact Us" - and automatically switched to the quantum entanglement communication line.

After just a few seconds of waiting, the call was connected and a sweet female voice sounded in Franklin's ears.

"Hello, this is the Atlas Group's 24-hour customer service hotline. How can I help you?"

The female voice was gentle and melodious, like the chirping of a nightingale, but Franklin could still tell that it was an AI operator, not the real operator he was looking for. The former was more used to deal with a large number of simple questions that were repeated every day, so the configured permissions were relatively low and might not meet his communication request of "directly reaching the heavens".

But after a moment of silence, Franklin still held the mentality of "since the call is connected, I might as well give it a try", and said nervously:
"Hello, I'm Franklin Abraham from the Rubion galaxy. Could you please help me contact Mr. Rebir, the chairman of your company?"

As soon as he said this, Franklin wanted to slap himself, because it sounded so stupid. Who would call the customer service line of another company for no reason and specify that they wanted to talk to the other company's boss?
Even if the person on the other end is an AI operator, it would probably identify this communication as a prank.

Just as Franklin was about to add a few more words to prevent the other party from identifying his communication as a prank, the sweet female voice on the other end of the line sounded again.

"Customer identity has been confirmed, please wait"

"what?"

The AI ​​operator's answer stunned Franklin for a moment. He never expected to hear such an answer, and he didn't expect that after he casually clicked "Contact Us", he seemed to be able to contact the man?
"Mr. Rebir is currently available. Do you confirm the call?"

"Confirmed!"

Franklin almost trembled as he answered. Everything was going so smoothly that he began to wonder if there was another Mr. Rebill in the Atlas Group.

"Switching to encrypted line completed, transferring your call"

Suddenly, the only sound in the communication channel was the beeping sound representing "transferring", and Franklin became more and more nervous, because he was just giving it a try and hadn't even thought of what to say.

But the next second, a familiar voice sounded in the encrypted communication line.

"Hey~ Mr. Franklin, I hope you are doing well. Why did you suddenly think of looking for me?"

Franklin calmed down almost instantly after hearing this voice, and then said in an anxious but steady voice:
"Mr. Rebir, I need... No, the people of the Rubion system need your and Atlas's assistance!"

(End of this chapter)